


Queen Anne’s Lace

by NKMLN



Series: Eston Chronicles [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Again I know what this says it is not an rpf., Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Fae AU, Fantasy, Gen, Had a creepy summer trip and so this happened, Horror, Mystery, New York State, Old Memes, Possession, Snuggling, two people kiss but it’s not a ship, virgil fights the eldritch with brass knuckles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NKMLN/pseuds/NKMLN
Summary: Have you ever heard a forest go silent?The creatures understand that there are two things in the area that won’t get along well. It’s a warning call.Patton has just returned to his childhood hometown, and the forest has gone quiet enough to hear footfalls.





	1. The Universe Contracts Decide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Half Life by Imogen Heap

The new house is all warped wooden floors and dusty windows. Patton gently places his keys on the counter, glancing around the kitchen. It’s small, quiet, neglected, and, as he looks out the only halfway transparent window, in the middle of nowhere.

It’s _perfect_.

Patton smiles brightly as he puts down his bag. The nearest town is almost a twenty minute drive, but the still forest outlining the yard makes it worth it. He can hear the birds outside- never a possibility in the city. He swipes a layer of dust off a window, and gazes out at the huge backyard, the impossibly blue sky.

He can work with this.

~|~

Patton finally gets the trailer unpacked late in the evening. The house seems hollow with just the furnishings from hissmall apartment. He can almost imagine his footsteps echo down through the foundation. The house seems to hold its breath.

He steps back from the picture he’s just hung in the hallway, admiring the effect, when something brushes his head. He looks up- the attic cord. _Oh_. He hasn’t seen the attic yet. Honestly, he hadn’t even considered there was an attic.

Oh. Spiders.

Maybe later.

~|~

Half a mile away, Logan listens to a voice that hasn’t spoken in almost four months. “Hey, Specs!” He can mouth along with the words. “Listen, I’m heading into the woods later, call it, uhh... Seven. Yeah, seven, my entrance to the path. Meet me there, okay? See you soon!”

He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says to the empty air.

No one responds.

~|~

Four days later, Patton’s decided he can’t put it off any longer. Spiders aside, he needs a place to put the leftover painting supplies- they can’t loiter in the spare bedroom forever. Patton carefully pulls down the ladder and grabs one of the leftover paint cans. Halfway up the ladder, he almost slips, so when he enters the attic, he’s looking down at his feet.

Patton’s first glance turns to a second take turns to an open stare. He hoists himself up into the attic- if it can even be called that. It’s a bedroom: three hammocks stretched between the walls, a translucent canopy hung in one corner, Broadway posters scattered across the walls. A full bookcase with a stuffed Eeyore perched on top, a desk in front of the window.

The whole room is choked with dust, but even through it, he can’t help but gaze at those hammocks. Red, purple, and dark blue, almost a gradient. Who used this room? Had no one checked the attic when they’d sold it to him? The only footprints in the dust are his own. The room seems sad, small, lonely.

Patton turns to the desk. Colorful pens and pencils spring from a small, glass candy jar. His eye travels from them to the dust-covered object to their right. He puts down the paint can and scrubs the dust away. It’s a laptop. Dead.

After checking the various drawers of the desk (which feels horribly intrusive) he finds a charging cable. He plugs it into the wall, starts charging the laptop. He’ll check it later, once he takes the paint can back to the spare bedroom. This isn’t his room. He won’t leave it here. “Sorry to bother you,” he murmurs to the hammocks.

They don’t reply, of course, because they are hammocks.

~|~

The frame around the screen is covered in dozens of small stickers shaped like knives. The only person with an account is someone with a black and white avatar of a crown, with the name “Roman Prince.” The previous owner, most likely. The username is filled in with a gmail account, but the password is empty.

Patton fiddles with the cardigan around his shoulders as he thinks. Signing in is a huge intrusion of privacy, but if he does, he might be able to return the computer to its former owner. Who... left it and several of their possessions settled as a bedroom in the attic? He brushes those thoughts aside. He’ll return it. He’ll find this Roman, and give him his laptop, and ask him about the attic and move on. No big deal!

So now, all he has to do is figure out the password.

He looks back at the laptop. “Okay, Roman. I’m Patton. Patton Patridge. It’s nice to meet you,” he says with a small smile.

~|~

Unbeknownst to the house’s new owner, there’s a thin, spiderweb crack in the corner of the kitchen window. There’s a small breeze that rustles the branches outside. It wouldn’t- shouldn’t- matter, but the woods have been waiting, and the woods listen. Something deep within hears a name, a true, full name.

Something stirs.

The Prince wakes.


	2. My Sweetheart Was a Gamblin’ Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Lauren O’Connel’s cover of House of the Rising Sun

Patton glares at the hintbox for the password. Whoever this Roman is, he knows how to set up his security. There’s no chance in hell anyone would know what the hint meant.

**Zfmebo23**

Well.

Well, one person did, but they don’t count.

He blinks sleep away and rubs his eyes under his glasses. The sun is setting, but in the middle of a New York summer, it’s more a warning than a marker of time. The knife stickers leer from their places on the frame. Why are there so many? For that matter, what kind of person would decorate their computer with stickers of knives?

Patton sighs, deep, and rests his chin on his hand. It really is getting late, and his eyes are starting to burn from staring at the screen for so long. He blinks again, hard.

_The attic. A man sits with his legs dangling over the edge of the red hammock, staring at a laptop sitting in his lap. A voice, but nothing at its source. “Ro, I swear to god, if you make your password some kind of Broadway reference, I will leave your Hamilton poster on the path.”_

_The man scoffs. “Killjoy.” He glances around for inspiration, eyes staring straight ahead, landing on-_

_On Patton’s._

_The man’s eyes turn solid black, and the darkness eats away at the scene, but it’s not black, it’s deep, rich brown, it’s bark. It’s a tree, and a hand reaches out at him, moss-covered fingers curved into claws, and he can’t move as they slash at him-_

Patton chokes on a scream as he snaps awake. His chair tips back as he jolts away from the phantom, and he hits the floor hard. The air gets knocked out of him for several moments, but he grabs the edge of the table and pulls himself to his feet.

When he looks outside, the sun has finished setting. That beautiful blue sky has turned into a silver canvas specked with darkness, the stars are so thick. He shakes his head to clear away the nightmare, but it stays stubbornly stuck in place. He looks up at the ceiling.

When he enters, his first impression is that the attic seems even lonelier in the darkness. Patton turns on the single, bare bulb set in the ceiling, trying to scare away the shadows. If anything, the light only casts them into sharper relief. He shivers as he orients himself with the red hammock.

So if he stood here, then the man would have been staring past him at... he turns to see a poster copy of a painting. A cluster of men in togas, knives raised aloft, poised to carve into flesh. Julius Caesar, he thinks. He knows it’s something along those lines. He shivers again as he looks out the window at the woods.

_Watch your back, or someone might put a knife in it._

_~|~_

_Caesar23_ , Patton types, and the account opens. The screensaver is the same as the avatar, a black and white drawing of a crown, and Roman doesn’t seem to have downloaded any programs. He opens the browser and checks the bookmarks- pizza delivery, ms paint, and... there! A chat client.

He opens it, (thank god the username and password are on auto fill this time!), checks the contacts- not the messages, he would never do something like that!- and quickly makes himself an account. He sends a message to Romans account, and waits.

And waits.

He checks for a ‘recently active’ sign, but doesn’t find anything. He doesn’t think Roman was involved with criminals, but for cautions sake, he makes sure the site can’t track location before sending a message to the most recent contact on the list.

He goes back to waiting.

~|~

Logan’s computer pings as he loads up his dishwasher. Virgil glances at it from his spot on the couch before going back to his book. “Dee again?”

Logan sighs. “Maybe he made a new account. How many time do you have to block a guy before he gets it?”

Virgil laughs quietly. “At least one more time, I guess,” he murmurs.

Logan closes the dishwasher and opens the website- it’s not Dee, as he’d originally thought, but someone with the username ‘Partridge.’ That’s not even remotely in Dee’s taste. His mouth goes dry when he opens the message.

“Hey, Patch?” Virgil looks up at his nickname, eyes narrowing in concern. Logan’s hands tremble as he twists them together. “I just got a message about Ro.”

_Hi! You were one of the last people Roman messaged, and I just found his computer. I was wondering if you could let him know I have it so I could give it back? Thanks so much!_

Virgil slams his book shut and races to Logan’s side. “Shit,” he breathes. He glances at Logan for a moment before typing a response.

_Who is this? How do you know I know Ro?_

The reply is near instant.

_I figured out his password and this site was bookmarked. I checked his contacts bc it said he wasn’t active, and you were the first one there. I didn’t look at anything else, I swear._

Logan bites his lip until he tastes blood. “The house sold,” he murmurs, and Virgil’s face drains of color, and he types a message back. “He doesn’t know about the path.”

_If you’re in Ros house, you’re twenty minutes from Eston right?_

_I didn’t say I was in Romans house_

_It sold two weeks ago. The laptop was in the attic. It’s not hard to figure out. There’s a Starbucks in town- well meet you there tomorrow at twelve_

_We? Who’s we?_

Virgil glances at Logan. “Tell him who we are,” Logan whispers. Virgil shakes his head, but keeps typing.

_My name is Virgil. The guy who owns this account is named Logan. We were friends with Roman- it’s a four minute walk between your house and either of ours._

_Oh! Well, nice to meet you! Pardon me for not giving you my name at the moment._

_It’s fine. Is Starbucks public enough for you?_

_Yes, that sounds wonderful! Will Roman be coming with you, or did he move too far away?_

Virgil reaches down and squeezes Logan’s hand. It’s hard to breathe. He can just barely see the entrance to the path in the darkness.

_We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, but no, Ro won’t be with us. We haven’t seen him for a few months_

_I’m sorry to hear that! Is he okay?_

_They didn’t say why the house was for sale, did they?_

_No, actually._

Virgil’s fingernails dig into Logan’s hand, and he deserves the pain.

_Ro disappeared four months ago_


	3. To Let The Flames Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from Let The Flames Begin by Paramore

_A man stands at the mouth of a path, alone, hidden in shadow. His silhouette, just visible, stares forwards, light dancing through his dark hair. Something moves past Patton’s face, and he jumps, even though he can’t see anything there. “Are you coming?” The voice sounds impatient, excited. The man takes a step forward, and his eyes meet Patton’s, however briefly._

_The scene is eaten by darkness, pouring out of the mans pupils, and Patton stumbles back. The dark turns green, light filtering through leaves, and he is alone._

_He stands a few feet away from a tree, and when the wooden, mossy hand claws out at him, he flinches away. It still can’t reach him, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief before he hears something, like wind in hollow logs, like rot made sound- slow, quiet, relentless._

**_Partridge...._  
**

Patton jolts awake, cold, shaking. Try as he might, he doesn’t sleep again that night.

~|~

“Iced chai latte for Patton!”

Logan stares at the counter, and the man who goes up to it. He’s fairly young, curly strawberry-blond hair and a pair of glasses. A computer bag is slung over one of his shoulders. “That’s him,” Virgil says quietly, worrying at the hand-stitching around his wrist.

Logan doesn’t question it, just raises his hand and waves the man over when he turns around. As he gets closer, Logan is able to pick out details- his eyes are an amber brown, his face smattered with freckles. “Hi! You guys are Logan and Virgil, right?” Patton extends his free hand, which Logan accepts, catching the way Virgil quietly shrinks back towards the wall.

“Yes, Logan Miller and Virgil Smith. A pleasure,” Logan tells Patton. Patton smiles broadly, brown eyes crinkling. He takes off the computer bag and puts it gently on the table. “I assume you have several questions about Roman... We’ll do our best to answer any queries,” Logan offers.

Patton looks down at the computer bag, almost like he’s trying to figure out what he’s allowed to say. “You said he disappeared?” Alright. Virgil squeezes his hand under the table. Showtime.

“Yes. The police figured he had-“ Logan cuts off, takes a deep breath. “Roman had left a voicemail on my phone saying he was going to go into the forest by his home- you’ve seen it, I’m sure- and he didn’t come back.” Patton’s eyes are wide behind his glasses. Logan’s seen this before: pity. He hates it.

Virgil speaks up. “Have you been in the forest yet?” Logan sees Patton’s eyes fill with something new: recognition. Confusion. Fear. He hides it well, but not quite well enough.

“Why?”

“Patton, that forest is dangerous. Not because of the animals- they’ll leave you alone, mostly, but...” Logan hesitates. It had sounded ridiculous then, and it sounds ridiculous now. He takes a deep breath, but before he can continue, Virgil speaks over him.

“There are things in that forest, Patton, things that shouldn’t exist without a dark kind of-“

“Stuff like a tree with a hand coming out of it?”

Virgil stops midspeech. Logan chokes on his drink.

Patton stares, eyes wide, waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” Logan finally says. “Yes, exactly like that.” He adjusts his glasses, trying to recover from his expression of shock. “How did you know?”

Patton leans back in his chair, fiddling with the straw of his drink. It makes a horrific screeching noise, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been having these weird dreams since I moved in- I...” He hesitates, glancing at Virgil before staring fixedly at the lid of his cup. “I’ve heard your voice before, Virgil. In them. I didn’t- I didn’t see you, but I heard you, and there’s always someone else, too, but I can’t remember what he looks like-“ The straw shrieks against the cup, and Logan has to physically restrain himself from stopping Patton. “But I see him, and then it changes to the woods, and there’s a hand in a tree, and- and that’s... real.”

Virgil leans across the table. “What did you hear me say?” His voice is low and urgent- Logan puts a hand on his shoulder. _Don’t scare him away._

Patton stops moving the straw, thank god. He stares down at the tabletop, concentrating. “Something about a Hamilton poster and leaving it somewhere if he made a reference. And then the second time, you were on a path and you just asked him if he was coming with you.”

Logan sees Virgil go still for a moment. “Vir-“

“How did you figure out the password to the computer?” His voice is still tight with urgency.

Patton shrugs. “The first dream I had, I was in the attic, and he looked past me at something before everything went dark, so I went back up and checked. It was a picture of Julius Caesar, so I just...” He drums his fingers in the table instead of finishing.

Logan knows the poster he’s talking about. _The_ _Death_ _of_ _Julius_ _Caesar_ , by Vincenzo Camuccini. It had been a birthday present from Logan- he’d bought it as something of a joke, but to his astonishment, Roman had loved it.

(Of course, it’s still a possibility that his affection towards the poster had been a mere furthering of said joke, but that’s not important.)

What _is_ important, however, is that somehow, the man sitting in front of him was able to glean its importance from a mere dream. A dream where he saw the face of a man he’d never met, heard the voice of another he’d never spoken to.

That’s not- that’s not possible.

Logan closes his eyes. “Don’t,” he murmurs to Virgil. “Don’t say it.” His own mind is racing a mile a minute, but he’s desperately trying to shy away from the conclusion. He can’t do this. He can’t do this again, can’t do the pain, can’t do any of it over. “Virgil, don’t you _dare_ say it, _please_ , don’t-“

“Say what?” Patton asks, still lost, still innocent in all this. The forest hasn’t dragged him down yet, he hasn’t been down the path, there’s still time, and suddenly Logan wants to scream for him to run, to get out of the nightmare before it begins.

“Logan-“

“ _Don’t_.”

(Don’t do it, Virgil, because if you’re right then the world is salvageable, and if you’re wrong then it’s shattering all over again. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.)

“Logan, he’s alive. He has to be.”

“Don’t.”

“Logan... Roman’s _alive_.”

~|~

Eston was built on the edge of a forest, by foolhardy men who thought that they could tame it. They were succeeded by children wiser than their parents, who left the forest alone in order to protect their town.

So the forest found a new way in.

The people of Eston do not know it, but their small town has been changing, generation to generation. Not just in the usual ways, not in age and decay and the emergence of new ideas, but in the citizens.

On Main Street, there’s a girl with an uncanny ability to see in the dark. There’s a father on the outskirts of town who’s never been lost in his entire life. There’s a man on Pine Boulevard who always knows what’s happened before he’s told. And beyond that, the people of Eston are born with an innate understanding of the rules of the forest. They believe that they keep themselves safe by keeping to themselves.

The people of Eston are wrong.

The forest has, for centuries, been kept at bay by those who dare enter it. Of all those in Eston, these have found the strongest protections, the ways to navigate when their own senses are not enough. Though they put themselves in the greatest danger, they understand the forest the most out of all those in Eston.

The people who go into the forest don’t get lost. They know their way too well. It doesn’t happen.

They don’t get lost.

They get taken.


	4. Tenderly They Turned to Dust All That I Adore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Things We Lost In The Fire by Bastille

Music plays blithely over the radio as Virgil and Logan drive home from the coffee shop. Virgil glances at Logan, who stares silently out his window at the streets and the slate-grey sky. Finally, Virgil speaks. “So are we going to talk, or...?”

He sees Logan shake his head, still turned away from him. He sighs and shuts off the radio. “Please, Logan, just- Are you-“ He trails off, unable to choose the right word.

“Am I what?”

There’s ice in Logan’s words, biting cold. “Am I okay? No. No, I’m not, because Roman’s dead, and even if he’s not, we can’t-“ His voice trembles, and Virgil takes a hand off the wheel to place gently on his shoulder. Logan’s trembling. “I just- if he’s not dead then we just left him there, and- and he might still be dead, Verge, it-”

Virgil pulls into a parking lot as Logan’s shoulders shake. “It hurts,” he chokes out, and Virgil’s heart twists, hard, as he pulls his friend into an embrace.

The sky opens, and Virgil listens to the pitter-patter of the rain and lets it muffle the rising pain.

It doesn’t, but any action is a start.

~|~

Patton opens up the chat client when he gets home, intending to ask Virgil or Logan... well, anything, really. The questions swirl in his mind. Fine, he can believe that the forest isn’t what it appears. And, okay, a guy who’s been missing for four months is appearing in his dreams. He was born in Eston, he gets it. He opens a new chatlog with Virgil.

_So how do you protect yourself against the stuff in the forest?_

Patton hits send, but it doesn’t show up in the log. He frowns, retypes. Nothing. He refreshes the page- maybe they both tried to send something at the same time? Unlikely, but he doesn’t really know how this works.

Oh, there it is. A new log is open- oddly enough, there’s no username on this one, just the blank space where it should be.

_Don’t ͟com͏e͏ ̢loo̢k̷i̸ng̸_

The text glitches in and out. Patton’s seen enough horror movies to know where this is going. He hits the block button and briefly considers looking up how to do an exorcism. Another message appears. Wonderful.

_P̶le̷a͝se t̴h͘ey ha͡v̸ȩ yǫur ͟na̡m̕e i̡t’s ͜not̶ ͠sa͢fe̴_

He hits the block button again- nothing. The text glitches in and out again, obscuring the words even further.

_Plea̕͢se d́o͘̕n’͝t͝ ́͘c̸o͠m͏̸e͠ l̴҉o̡o͟k̶̛i̴̡͢ń͘g͜ f̛͟͡o̶͢ŗ͟ h̶̸̢̀i҉͘͘ḿ̧_

_Who is this?_

Patton hits send, but the words don’t appear in the log. The senders message is written over in garbled text.

_H̢͞i̛̛m҉̶͜_

_N̶̡͝o҉͝_

_H̵͟͡҉è̕͡͝’̶͘ś̨̀͠_ _ḩ̷̡͟͠ú͜͜͠͝ǹ̶͟͢t͏̧͠i̴̛͘͜͝n̶̶̡͠g̶̨̨͠_ _y͏́͡o̶̡̡͝ù́͟͜͞_ _h͢͝a̶͠v̷̷̡̢é̷͏̴̡_ ̶́͏ _t̴͡o̵͘_ _ŗ̷̨͡u̧̢n_

The screen glitches, freezes, goes blank. The laptop is whirring up a storm- when the chat screen finally returns, the log is gone. Patton stares at the laptop for a moment. “That’s not supposed to happen,” he finally mutters. He sends a new message to Virgil- thankfully, this time, it goes through.

_Hey does the forest ever mess with your stuff?_

_Not if you’re in the house, no. Why?_

_Uhh ok I think Roman’s laptop might be possessed._

_Do you want me to come over and take a look?_

_Yes, please._

_Okay I’ll be over in five what happened?_

_Someone messaged me but there wasn’t a username and the text kept glitching and then it all just disappeared._

_Whatd they say?_

_That I wasn’t safe and something was hunting and something else about names? I’m not sure, the log is gone._

_Names?_

_That something knew my name, like I said, I’m not really sure. And it was pretty hard to read._

There’s no response for what feels like several minutes.

_Virgil?_

_Dont leave the house until I get there. This is really mportant you cant leave the house until I get there okay?_

_Umm, okay- Why?_

_I’ll tell you when I get there do not leave the house_

_I won’t!_

_Okay. I’ll be there soon._

_~|~_

Mud squelches underfoot as Virgil runs down the wide, grassy path running beside the forest. On his other side is a field of tall grass. His horizon is a mess of trees in full leaf and smoky grey-blue mountains.

The path itself is dotted with wildflowers— the Queen Anne’s lace dances and bends as the raindrops land on its flowers. The forest and field both rustle in the wind, but Virgil hardly notices. His thoughts are a storm of their own. His hood is drawn up, hardly waterproof, but he hasn’t had time to put on a raincoat. This is the best he’ll get.

If the forest does indeed know Patton’s true name, then their greatest chance at finding Roman may have just been put in serious danger.

He glances into the forest and runs faster.

~|~

Virgil’s hoodie drips onto Patton’s kitchen floor as he stands at the counter, staring at the laptop screen. The chat client seems to be acting alright now, but his face is drawn and apprehensive. “So the log just disappeared?”

Patton nods. “Yeah. I figured it was a prank or something, but the site wouldn’t let me block them.” He looks up at Virgil from his seat. “What’s wrong?”

“You can’t go into the forest.”

” _What_?”

Virgil looks taken aback by the force of the word. “It’s not safe! I’m- Patton, I’m sorry, but if the forest knows your name, it’s not safe for you to go in.”

Patton’s eyes go wide. “But what about finding Roman? I’ve been seeing him- you have to let me help!”

Virgil looks down, stops facing Patton. “I know. I- I know. But- Okay.” He blows his bangs out of his eyes and looks back up. “We need you if we’re going to find him. I’ll talk to Lo. We’ll figure it out, okay? We’ll- we’ll figure something out.“

There’s a note of desperation in his words. “Verge?”

Patton hesitates for a moment before taking Virgil’s hand. “We’ll find him. I promise. We’ll find Roman.” He tries to make himself believe the words.

Lightning flashes outside, followed immediately by a cymbal crash of thunder. The storm is here.

~|~

When Logan looks outside the window at his backyard, it takes him several minutes to see the figure standing at the forest’s border. Even with his glasses, it’s hard to make out, so fierce is the rain, but he can just see two burning white eyes before it turns and leaves.

In the house, he shivers. He knows it can’t touch him, not here. The houses by the forest are warded halfway to hell. But something that large? Something so obviously powerful? It shouldn’t be able to get so close to the yard.

“Well,” Logan murmurs, “that’s not ideal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has art, made by tumblr’s incredible Punsterterry!
> 
> https://punsterterry.tumblr.com/post/177739531652/i-drew-a-scene-from-stella-scriptors-story-queen


	5. It’s a Battle Cry, It’s a Symphony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine

Logan knows better than to go out into the forest by himself, but once the storm eases, he heads across his backyard to the treeline where he saw the beast. His backyard is fairly large- typical for a property so rural, but daunting nevertheless. He passes his entrance to the path- something small and furry scurries across its width, from the field to the forest, and he pulls his raincoat tight around his body. He knows it’s nothing to worry about, but as he nears the treeline, his worry takes a sharp leap.

There are tracks, just behind the treeline. They look human enough, but he sees how they carefully skirt the buried iron border. It’s far too close for comfort. He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. The water floods across his vision for a moment, and he sighs again.

His phone rings in his pocket. Virgil. Good. He’s got news to share.

His concerns do not, in fact, get voiced,overwritten as Virgil tells him about the chatlog and Patton’s name. He ducks back inside as the water picks up, erasing his footprints and those of the creature’s. His raincoat drips onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. “So Patton can’t come with us,” Virgil finishes.

Logan shakes his head. “But he has to!” He _has_ to. He can’t get this close and lose Roman again.

“Yeah, that’s about what Patton said, too,” Virgil says wryly. “Listen, I hate this just as much as you do, but we can’t let him do this.”

“Why not?”

There’s iron in his voice, but Logan knows why not. Because Patton didn’t sign up for this. Because it’s not safe. Because he’ll be taken.

“Because we’re better than the things in the forest,” Virgil reminds him, and he knows it’s no accusation. “Look, he should at least know the danger before he makes a decision.”

Logan looks out his window, past the tree with the wooden swing, past the dilapidated barn house, towards the border of the forest.

“Once the storm passes.”

~|~

“So we don’t- This isn’t safe,” Virgil tells Patton. He fidgets with the drawstrings of his hoodie, pulling them longer, shorter, equal, a noose a dozen times over. A half-full mug of tea sits on the counter in front of him. “The forest has your name, and it’s- really not safe, but it’s your choice. We’ll show you the path, we’ll show you how to protect yourself, but it’s- you get to choose if you want to get wrapped up in this or not.”

Virgil stares at the ground. Patton sits next to him at the bar. He doesn’t quite know how to answer. Virgil looks terrified, that he’ll say yes, that he’ll say no. The silence stretches on and on against the low patter of the rain.

“What was Roman like?” Patton asks finally.

Virgil exhales hard, not quite a laugh, looking up at him. “You’ve heard the phrase ‘pick your battles’?” Patton nods. “He picked all of them. The man stole one of those plastic dogs from Target once- he heard they were getting a new one, and he snuck it out and paid off the manager. He made a sword once on a dare. He was... a disaster. But, like, a really good one.” There’s a small pause. “Honestly, it’s kind of a wonder he lasted as long as he did,” Virgil says, a smile flickering over his face.

“We used to hole up in his attic on the nights we didn’t want to walk home alone. He’d play a movie on his laptop, or put on music, and we’d just... hang out.” Virgil’s eyes dart everywhere but Patton’s.

He ties his drawstrings into complicated knots, once, again, ad infinitum. “I guess it’s your attic now,” he murmurs softly.

“I haven’t actually been up there a lot,” Patton admits, and Virgil does look up at that. “It felt wrong? It doesn’t feel like my attic.” He hasn’t said it out loud before, but it’s the truth. The house is his in name alone.

“I grew up here,” Patton begins quietly, looking out the window. “It hasn’t changed much- we moved to New YorkCity when I was about twelve, and I’d tell people where I was from, and they’d ask, ‘Where’s that?’” Patton laughs a little. “It’s so small, on a map. It’s- it’s small in real life, too, but I didn’t realize that when I was younger. It was just... Eston was home. And I never questioned that, it- itjust _was_.”

He looks back at Virgil, through him, because if he sees the reaction he’s going to stop talking, just like every other time before. “You don’t question your home, when you’re a kid. It’s the best place in the world, until you go back, and then it’s just... a place. So now, I have to make it my home all over again, and it feels... weird. It’s really weird,” he trails off.

To his surprise, Virgil nods. “You think you’re coming home, and you’re not home at all.” It seems to register with him, and he takes in the walls around them. “Oh.”

Patton takes a sip of his tea. It’s gone cold, now. “Yeah. It doesn’t really feel like mine, not since I’ve found out about Roman. It’s like I’m stepping into his life, but he’s still living it.” It’s an odd sentiment, considering he’s been missing for four months. It’s an odd thing to tell a man he’s just met, but after the day they’ve had, it seems passable enough. “Sorry if that sounds weird.”

“You’re fine.” Virgil looks out the window at the curtain of rain. “I don’t think the storm’s going to stop tonight, and it’s getting pretty late. Logan and I can stop by tomorrow morning to show you the path. If you want,” he amends quickly. “You don’t have to. Like I said, it’s going to be dangerous, and I totally understand if you don’t-“

“I do,” Patton says, and his voice is sure enough to build a city on.

~|~

_The man sits on a stage, in a guttering spotlight. There’s a still moment before he begins to sing- the theater is empty, and Patton finds himself able to move closer. The man’s eyes are closed, and he knows what will happen when they open, but for now, he just listens. The mans voice is steady, almost blindingly bright. Patton can’t quite hear the words, but the melody is simple enough, sweet, gentle. If he was awake, he’d recognize it. The man looks up, opens his eyes, and the darkness pours out-_

_A wooden battle helmet lies in front of the tree next to a rusted sword, and Patton is far away enough to see both. The tree doesn’t change, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief, before something clamps down onto his shoulder. A bird screeches in the background, and something takes a rattling breath-_

Patton wakes, hitting the ground hard enough to bruise.

Well, his sleep schedule has officially died. Rest In Peace, sleep schedule.

Thunder rumbles outside, and Patton squeaks and buries himself back under the covers.

~|~

Logan knocks on his back door at eleven the next morning. The yard is a hazy, semi-opaque white, wiped clean and obscured by fog. “Good morning!” Patton greets him.

Logan smiles quickly. “Are you ready to go?” Patton’s about to answer when he sees the metal pipe Logan carries- it’s larger on one side than the other, a handle and a rounded tip. It’s only about a foot long, but Patton knows a foot is enough.

“What’s the club for?” He tries to keep his voice nonchalant, but his fingers tighten around the doorknob.

Logan looks down like he had forgotten he was carrying it. “It’s not for you, I swear,” he says immediately.

“Then what?”

“Call it wildlife.”

”You’re going to hit a _bear_ with a _club_?”

“...other wildlife, but I get your point.” Logan shakes his head. “I shouldn’t need it, but with circumstances being what they are, I just wanted to have it as a precaution. I can leave it here if you want.”

He sounds genuine.

Patton thinks most serial killers sound genuine, but then they take you into the woods and kill you.

“It’s fine,” Patton tells him, because it probably will be, and if it isn’t, well, he won’t have to worry about it much longer.

The path is maybe three yards wide, but it extends to a point that Patton can’t see in the fog. One side is a green/brown field of grain and grasses, while the other is the treeline to the forest. Virgil walks beside the two of them, hands in his hoodie pockets.

“So,” Logan says once they’re maybe a few yards in, “there are a few rules you need to know.” He reaches down and picks three stems of Queen Anne’s lace, braiding them deftly together. “First of all, this is the best way to protect yourself. Queen Anne’s lace means sanctuary, and out here, that’s literal- as long as it’s from the path. May I see your wrist?”

Patton hold out his hand obligingly, and Logan pushes the stem through the top of the braid to create a loop as he ties it around.

“We wouldn’t normally need these if we aren’t going in the forest, but things aren’t normal right now. You have to wear these, or at least have one on you. And only if the plant is growing on the path, okay? Otherwise, it’s not ours to take.”

The gravity of Logan’s tone sends shivers down Patton’s spine. He nods, looking down at the white blossoms. “The other best protection is having someone with you while you use the path. Let us know if you’re going out.”

There’s a darker current under Logan’s words, and Patton thinks of Roman for a split second before he agrees.

“Second,” Virgil jumps in, “out here, we have to use nicknames. If the forest has your real name, it’s got power over you. I’m Patch, and Lo is Specs. Ro is Red. Got it?” Patton nods again. “Good. Giving you a nickname is, uhh... kind of a moot point, since the forest already knows your true name... somehow.” Virgil shakes his head and snickers. There’s no real humor in the noise. “When you figure out how you managed that, let me know, okay?”

Patton smiles, but quickly jumps towards the field as the forest rustles in the still air. Logan goes still, and Virgil quickly puts Patton behind him. After a moment of silence, they keep moving.

“Third,” Logan says, keeping an eyes on the forest, “you can’t take anything from the forest without leaving something from the path behind. It sees it as stealing. Have a rock or a flower or something, or get ready to fight for whatever it is you want. You got all that?”

Patton nods. “Yeah, I’ve got it.” He shivers in the mist. “So where are we going?”

“My place,” Virgil responds, still looking warily into the trees. “Just to show you how to get there.”

Patton nods again, his attention overruled as they pass a short outcrop of the path that dead ends against the trees. He’s about to move past it when he hears something- a sharp, clean snap. All three of them pause again, Logan tightening his grip on the pipe, which rattles as he adjusts it, and Virgil with his hand creeping towards his pocket.

Something moves against the fog.

A dark, wooden shape, almost six and a half feet tall, comes into view against the fog. Patton hears Virgil gasp sharply, his own senses kicking into overdrive. The shape has two glowing white eyes, the same color as the fog, set into a wooden battle helmet wreathed in a crown of mist. It wears- or perhaps is formed of- wooden armor that creaks like living trees in wind as it moves. It’s eerily silent as it stands among the trees.

And then it steps forward, onto the path, where the forest has not tread in over a hundred years.

“Oh, shit,” Virgil says softly, and if Patton didn’t swear, he’d agree. Shit, indeed.


	6. I Can’t Help This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Control by Halsey

Virgil winds his fingers through the iron knuckledusters in his hoodie pockets. The beast- fae? Oh, screw semantics, the _thing_ \- stares down at him with white, swirling eyes. He carefully positions himself in front of Patton, next to Logan. “Get Patton out of here,” he hisses to his friend.

The beast doesn’t move, but Logan shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you here alone.” Of course he’s not. Virgil’s not sure whether to be relieved or angry. He settles for the former.

Virgil takes out the knuckledusters and grips them tightly. “Pat, we’re going to drive it back and run. Get ready,” he murmurs tightly, and Patton glances at him with wide eyes. He doesn’t answer, but it wouldn’t matter, anyway, because Virgil’s not looking anymore, his vision tunneling to the creature in front of him.

It carries a sword covered in thorny vines and blood red roses. There’s no shield, as far as he can see, but he doubts it needs one with its armor. He raises his fists and settles into stance, checking that the Queen Anne’s lace tucked into the stitching on his arm is still intact. The beast makes a creaking noise like wood about to break as it raises its sword.

Logan rushes past him, blocking the blow with his club as the sword comes down. It makes a dull crashing noise, and he sees Logan wrest for control, keeping the beast’s arm up and immobile. Virgil dashes in and delivers two quick blows to its torso- where the metal connects, it leaves behind dark, sprawling scorch marks. The beast makes a sound like a wounded animal and pulls away from Logan.

Too late. They know it can be hurt. Virgil grits his teeth and dives back in.

~|~

There is something _very_ wrong.

Maybe it’s the fog, but the beast isn’t alone. It’s not- Patton can see other figures moving in the fog, all just too tall or too quick or too bright to be human. They don’t leave the forest, just gather at the treeline behind the beast.

And it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s-

He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, like his skin is crawling. It’s wrong like the bastardization of a word that he should know the meaning of and doesn’t, like his favorite song in a different key, like broken toys that keep on moving.

He _knows_ this.

It’s bitingly alien, and he _knows_ it.

He steps back, away from the fight, the forest, quiet as he can. The way the beast moves is like an impression, like something he should understand. The wreath of fog around its helmet turns from white to grey to storm black so softly that it’s a shock to see it change.

Patton bites his lip, hard and tries to control his breathing. The scene hurts his eyes. It’s- it’s corrupted, somehow, dark and full of rot. He sees Logan get a hit with his iron club, but the beast hits him across the chest with the flat of his sword. There’s a sickening thud, and he goes down. Virgil hardly looks, just glances and keeps moving like he’s done it a hundred times before. The beast parries his blows with surprising speed, the sword-

The sword.

The sword covered in roses and thorns, and, Patton’s willing to bet, a layer of rust.

The rusted sword. The wooden helmet. The world snaps back into tempo. It’s not alien, it’s familiar after all.

Oh, god.

~|~

Logan goes down, and Virgil tries to get in as many blows as he can before he goes down, too. He’s trying to punch out a fae. The idea is ridiculous. This isn’t going to work, oh, god, they’re all going to die.

Virgil goes in for the strike, but the beast dodges away, and he oversteps, loses his balance for a critical moment. He sees the fog move, hears the great creaking as the beast raises its sword, and-

“Roman, _stop_!”

Virgil turns to see the beast reel, dropping its sword. He hears it breathe harshly, deeply. He looks up, and the fog has dispersed from the eyes, and it’s just- oh, god.

It’s just his friend looking back.

“Virgil?” Roman asks, and his voice is quiet and afraid, and his torso is covered in scorch marks and Virgil put them there, he hurt his friend-

There’s a snapping sound, a rush of wind, and the fog floods back over his friends eyes. The beast stands straight, picks its sword up. There will be no hesitation this time, Virgil knows. He pulls a rising Logan to his feet. “Can you walk?”

Logan nods, grimacing, then shakes his head. “‘M sorry. Was that-“

“Not now. We have to run,” Virgil tells him. He hesitates, then scoops Logan up. “We have to go,” he yells towards Patton. The beast is approaching.

“But Red-“

“That’s not Ro right now, Patton, we _need_ to _go_!”

Patton blinks, and Virgil sees his own hurt reflected in his eyes. He looks back at the beast- still slow, but not for much longer. “Patton, we have to go _now_!”

Patton hesitates, then nods, and follows Virgil as they run down the path.

~|~

Roman wakes up on a decaying stage, behind tattered curtains and before a sea of moth-bitten chairs. He’s been here before- Logan filmed him on this stage for a project once, on the last night before the theater was demolished. He stands, shaking, on the stage, and a guttering spotlight flickers overhead.

“Hello?” he calls out. There’s no response. He can’t remember why he’s here, just the path, and nothing, snatches of memory, a face that he only half recalls. The path again, and then-

And then the fear in his friends eyes, the voice begging him to stop. Roman did something, or he was made to do something, but...

He can’t remember.

Roman looks out at the theater. He doesn’t know where he is, or what’s happening, but he intends to find out.

Roman is awake now, and he’s going to stay that way.


	7. I Hope That You Wake Up In Time to Scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Saddest Thing I Know by Birds Of Tokyo

They sprint back to Virgil’s house. Patton can’t hear the beast- can’t hear Roman behind them, but he doesn’t look to check.

_Oh, Roman, what happened to you?_

They rush across Virgil’s yard, past a tall tree with a long rope ladder hanging from one of its top branches. The fog has burned away enough for Patton to see it now. Virgil throws open the back door of the stone saltbox- as soon as he lays Logan on his sofa, he whirls around to Patton, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Explain. _Now_.”

Patton puts up his hands, acutely aware of the weapons still clutched in Virgil’s. He’s still trying to catch his breath, but Virgil doesn’t seem wined at all. “I don’t know what that was, I swear I don’t, I just felt really weird and I-“

“I hurt him,” Virgil hisses, and Patton sees him curl his fingers through the dull silver knuckledusters like he’s trying to gouge lines in his own skin. “That was Roman, and I- I hurt-“

“You didn’t know-“

“Because _you_ didn’t _tell_ me-“

“I didn’t know eith-”

“That is such _bullshi_ -“

“Wait, what happened?” Logan asks. Patton turns to see him sit up, putting a hand on the side of his chest. His expression is carefully blank, like he knows too well how to hide the pain.

Virgil’s face twists sharply downwards, and the knuckledusters fall from his fingers. He pushes past Patton, who hears him run up the stairs and slam a door.

Logan looks up at him from the couch. “What happened?”

Patton sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “That’s a good question.”

~|~

Logan knocks on Virgil’s bedroom door maybe half an hour later. Patton’s given him a pretty good picture of what happened, but he hasn’t begun to process it yet.

Roman’s alive.

Logan missed him by _that much._

That... really shouldn’t be what he’s worried about.

Anyway, the door doesn’t open. He pushes away the thoughts about Roman ( _Roman_ ) and knocks again. “Hey, Virge? Can I come in?”

The handle rattles. The door swings open, just slightly.

It takes him a moment to find Virgil. He’s huddled in a little ball next to the door, staring out of the window at the fog. The lights in his room aren’t on, but Logan can still make out the gleaming tear tracks on his face. His eyes are red, but they aren’t wet. Logan closes the door, then sits next to him. “Do you want to talk?” he asks gently.

Virgil nods.

“Okay. What’s going on?”

Virgil brings his knees up to his chest and leans his forehead against them, mumbling something that Logan can’t quite make out.

“What was that?”

“I hurt him,” Virgil says, just a little louder, but it’s enough for Logan to understand. At his touch, Virgil unfolds and falls across him, shaking in tiny motions that might be sobs. There’s no noise. The absence of sound drags across his gut- Logan wonders how he’s so good at crying quietly.

“You didn’t know.”

“I tried to _kill_ him, I- Lo, you didn’t see, but I hurt him, and he- he knew, he knew what I did, he was scared, Lo, and I-“ Virgil draws a rattling, unsteady breath. “He knew I hurt him, he was scared, Lo, and I-“

Logan holds him tightly, drawing him into his lap. Virgil clutches tightly to his shirt as the tears begin again.

They stay like that for a while. Patton’s waiting, he knows, but Virgil needs him right now. It’ll be okay.

“You didn’t know. It was self-defense, Virgil, he would’ve hurt you too.”

“That’s the worst part,” Virgil says quietly. “He would’ve.”

There’s a beat.

“We cry way too much for the New York average.”

“Logan and Virgil, who cry on a weekly, if not daily basis, are outliers and should not have been counted.”

“...Logan, that was literally the worst thing I’ve heard all day.”

He’s laughing against Logan’s chest. Mission accomplished.

It’s going to be okay, Logan thinks. They can do this now.

Just.

Just one more minute before they have to.

~|~

Logan drives Patton back over to his house around twelve thirty. “Nothing should be able to get into the yard, but if you need to come over, just send a message, okay?” Patton nods, unbuckles, reaches for the handle before pausing.

“Hey, Logan?” Logan looks over at him quizzically. “Is there... a way to get Roman back, now?”

Logan looks away. “I...” He hesitates, fingers drumming against the steering wheel.

“I don’t know.”

Patton nods, and leaves the car. That’s really all there is to say, isn’t it?

As he opens the door, a small grey cat streaks in behind him, racing across the kitchen floor and hopping onto the couch. Patton stares at it for a moment before sighing. “You’re lucky you’re so cute.”

It makes a small meowing noise before it stretches and lays down.

Okay, well, it lives here now. Awesome. Patton’s got a cat.

Wow, it’s been a day.

He locks up his front door and his back. The fog has started to burn away, and from what he can see, there’s nothing in his backyard. That’s good, at least. He opens the cabinet to get tea, then pauses with his fingers on the handle. This used to be Roman’s house, before he... what? Got lost? Got taken? Got changed or transformed, warped into something beyond what he was, something that would try to kill its friends?

He makes two cups of tea and brings one up to the attic, opening the trap door carefully with his only free hand. He gently places the mug, navy blue with a white lily on its handle, under the red hammock. Dust still chokes the air- he can see it swirl away from him as he moves, settling on the surface of the liquid.

“Hey, Ro,” he starts haltingly. “I know you, um, sent me those messages, and those dreams, and, um. I don’t know if you can hear me, but we’re going to try to get you back, okay? If you can hear me, just keep going a little longer, and we’ll be there soon, I promise. We aren’t giving up on you.”

The mug sits under the hammock, pitifully small against so much dust. Patton sighs.

“We’re coming.”

~|~

Roman can hear someone blundering through the theatre, and he’s up in a second. He sees them downstairs in the audience- the silhouette of a person wandering slowly to the stage. He grabs a pair of scissors from a cup by the soundboard and creeps quietly downstairs to meet them.

After so many hours- at least, he thinks it’s been hours, but time is funny where the forest is concerned- he’s memorized every creak and flaw in this building. He moves soundlessly, padding across the aisles toward the man. He’s in a sky-blue shirt, with a grey hoodie tied around his waist. Roman can just barely make him out against the flickering stage lights. He opens the scissors with a sharp _snickt_ (why are they so loud?) and the man turns towards the sound.

There’s a split second before their eyes meet, and the man says simply “Oh,” in a tone of wonder.

And then the second reattaches to itself, and Roman meets his amber eyes, and he feels his own burn like something has spilled in them. There’s a sound like the wind in his ears, and a voice chanting in a language that he barely understands- _Partridge_ , _Prince_ , _your_ _duty_ \- and he throws up a hand to block the gaze. He makes a small cry of relief as the pain stops, replaced by darkness, and feels the scissors drop from his hands.

“Are you okay?” The man asks, and Roman doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s heard a human voice, but something inside him flutters wildly at the sound.

“Eyes- hurt- ow,” he croaks, and the man makes a pained little gasp.

Roman feels his scarf unwind from around his neck, and feels someone take his hand in theirs. The thing in him breaks, and so does he, just a little, because there’s someone touching his hand for the first time in who knows how long. “Keep your eyes closed, okay?” The man asks kindly, and he really does ask, like he’s making sure Roman is okay with it. The hand leaves his, and he feels the scarf being wrapped around his eyes in a blindfold. “There we go! You’re okay now,” the man reassures him, and he can’t see, he’s practically defenseless, but Patton won’t hurt him.

_And it was pain and forgetting for so long, wasn’t it?_

Who’s Patton?

“You’re Roman, right?” Patton asks, and Roman nods. “Well, Ro, I’m Patton. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

Roman doesn’t know why he sounds so sad when he says it, or why it sounds like there’s wind in his ears, why half his molecules are shrieking _duty_ and the other half are whispering _danger_ , but Patton’s hand finds his again, and he decides he can listen to the thing in his stomach that’s crying _safe_.

Patton’s hands are so human, and he’s been so lonely, even if he can’t remember it. “It’s nice to meet you, too,” he finally says, and it’s a lie.

It’s all a lie.

He’s so afraid.

He smiles anyway.


	8. It Tells You Nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Icarus by Bastille

Patton’s never liked the dark.

 _There’s no light in the theater. Roman’s hands are cold. His voice is so quiet._ Patton’s thoughts spark and fade like dying fireflies against the backdrop of the stage. Roman sits next to him on the edge of the stage. If not for the blindfold, he’d be looking out at the audience. Patton’s told him everything, now- he reacted to some parts better than others. The palms of his hands have red lines from his fingernails.

“How long have you been here?” Patton asks him gently.

Roman drums his fingers against the stage. “Only a few hours, I think.”

“Do you... remember anything?”

Roman looks over at that, or tries to.  _The scarf- blindfold- is red._ “The path. You, but those are fuzzy. Everything before. Is there... something else I need to remember?”

_He hurt Logan._

“No,” Patton says. The spotlight flickers again. Liar, liar. “But maybe if you could remember how it happened, we could get you home.”

Roman smiles, bright and sweet and desperate. Patton’s going up in flames.

_He can’t know._

This thought doesn’t die.

Patton smiles back, and opens his eyes to find himself in bed, a purring cat curled up next to his head.

~|~

Patton disappears, and Roman doesn’t realize, not for several moments.

“Hello?”

No one.

_No one’s coming, Prince._

He tears off the blindfold. “Patton?” he calls. Nothing. He’s not there. He’s not-

“No,” Roman whispers. “No, no, no, don’t-“

He takes a deep breath. He’s alone. Again.

Breathe.

It’s so quiet.

He’s alone again.

 _Courage_ , _Prince_. It’s not his voice that thinks it. Roman draws his knees up to his chest and tries not to tremble too hard.

~|~

Press play.

“Hey, Specs!”

_Don’t you dare let him go again._

“Listen, I’m heading into the woods later, call it, uhh… Seven. Yeah, seven, my entrance to the path. Meet me there, okay? See you soon!”

Logan looks again at the iron club leaning against the wall. There’s a blossom of a bruise over his chest, mottled shades of purple, brown, and green. It hurts. A lot.

He thinks he probably deserves it.

He tried to hurt one of his best friends. He got his friend into a situation that allowed that to happen. He didn’t-

He didn’t pick up the phone. That’s what this all boils down to. He didn’t pick up his phone, so Roman left, alone, and got taken, and turned, and-

His fault. It’s always been his fault. It’s always been his weight to bear. That’s how it works. This is his mistake to shoulder.

But-

“No,” Logan says out loud. Because, really, this... this would have happened anyway. Roman wouldn’t have gotten lost by himself, but he didn’t get lost. He got abducted. That would have happened if Logan had been there, too. Maybe at a different time, but it still would have happened.

This is not his fault.

This is not-

Logan has done many difficult things in his lifetime. He has fought off supernatural beings, confronted a man he truly thought he loved about his unfaithfulness. He has lost and fought and struggled, and every single time, he has won. He has moved on. He has lived.

Nothing he’s ever done compares to the moment he presses the delete button on the message.

He stares at his phone for a moment before selecting a new number and calling Virgil. He’s done being guilty. It’s time to get him back.

It’s time to put this burden down.

~|~

When Eston was created, the Sanders family was the first to understand how to keep the forest at bay. More than that, they were the first to act on their knowledge. They created the Besiders’ plots, on the border of the forest, and created the paths with time, effort, and a certain kind of magic borne of desperation and will.

They became the unknown, unthanked protectors of Eston. Entirely ordinary, but for their secret roles. They lived, and they fought, and they won, usually- but there were four plots originally, for four Besiders. One, the Sanders’ youngest son, went missing. Only his iron charm was ever found.

The others fought harder, but he never came home. His iron charm became the fiercest protection known to any resident of Eston, made of man’s metal and a family’s grief.

The other siblings grew up. They lived. They died. As for their children- some stayed. Some left. The generations of Besiders since then have been made, not born.

And yet...

And yet, in every generation of Besiders, a descendant of the Sanders will reappear in Eston. Perhaps not by the same name, but one will reappear. The people of that small, sleepy town know what it means when a new neighbor arrives. They know what will happen.

They keep their heads down, and act like that protects any of them.

Blood calls to blood, and there is so much blood in that forest.


	9. I Tried To Be the Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Devil Within by Digital Daggers

The first time Patton learned what lay at Eston’s core was at six years old, in the graveyard.

His mother had liked to do crayon imprints of the graves, saving the weathered epitaphs in some morbid fascination. Patton would wander away from her, towards the duck pond, and feed the mallards.

On this particular day, there had been a man- a college student, perhaps, seated on the shore, surrounded by ducks. Four of them nested in his lap, while the others quacked loudly for their turn. Patton had sat down carefully several feet away and watched in fascination as another duck waddled over.

The man had looked up and smiled. One of the ducks jumped off his lap, shook itself off, and scrambled over to Patton. The duck poked its way under Patton’s hand, clearly asking to be pet. It breathed harshly, almost alarmingly fast. It’s heartbeat hammered into Patton’s fingers.

“How did you do that?” Patton had squealed in delight.

The man waggled his fingers theatrically. “Why, magic, of course!”

“Could you please show me how to do it?”

The man’s smile had faded, and he’d almost looked like Patton’s mother, but just a little too sad, a little too tired. “Maybe one day,” the man had said kindly.

He’d seen the man’s picture two days later in a school trip to the museum. The portrait was in the History of Eston section, dated 1848. It was titled simply, ‘The Sanders Family’.

The smallest boy, Patton’s age, smiled sweetly out of the canvas, a toy duck wrapped in his arms.

~|~

The stage squeals under Roman’s feet, sending out a shrill warning of its age. He carefully adjusts the ropes holding up the background- boredom is just as dangerous as fear, as far as he’s concerned, hence the general screwing about backstage.

It’s been a few hours, as far as he can tell, but Patton still hasn’t returned. Roman’s starting to wonder if he imagined him. The footprints in the dust on the aisle between the seats are the only thing keeping him afloat. He brings down the first background, secures it, and walks back onto the stage to see what it is.

Totally shredded. Wonderful.

The next one is just about the same. The image is slightly more visible, but not by much. He doesn’t have high hopes for the last one, but when he steps back onto the stage and sees what it is, it’s like his heart freezes in his chest.

He doesn’t recognize the painted forest scene in front of him. He doesn’t recognize the bones (doesn’t know what they’re from) scattered at the foot of- what is that? It’s all twisted wood and snaring twigs, literally rooted into the ground, but it’s jutting quartz crystals, too, circled by mist.

It’s... it’s a throne. There’s even a crown made of leaves and lichen suspended near the top, just waiting for an occupant so the coronation can begin.

Roman thinks he might be sick.

He’s never seen this thing before in his life. He doesn’t- he’s never seen it. He has a sudden desire to find those screechy scissors and rip this thing to tatters.

Something inside him has stopped, a rush of wind in his head forcing him still until he abandons the thought of destroying the screen. The whispers die, leaving just one, quieter and more gentle than all the rest. His voice, this time, drifts through his mind, and he believes this if nothing else.

_Don’t trust Logan._

The spotlight flickers, lightning in an eerie, still sky.

~|~

Virgil looks down at Logan and Patton from his perch on the counter, where he carefully stitches another patch onto his hoodie. Trapped under the patch are small, severed blooms from the head of a Queen Anne’s lace flower. His jacket is covered in dozens of patches just like this- he’ll never be defenseless, so long as he’s got his hoodie.

Plus, it smells like wildflowers, and it’s very soft. As far as armor goes, it’s pretty goddamn excellent.

“I suppose I could go check the lot where the theater stood, though I’m sure by now it’s been built on. Short of checking the forest again, I’m not sure what can be done,” Logan says despairingly.

Virgil ties a knot and bites through the white embroidery thread. “Hey, Pat, you said you used to live here, right? Did you ever visit the Montgomery theater?”

Patton shakes his head.

”Damn it.”

”You used to live here?”

Patton looks up at Logan. “Oh, yeah! Until I was about twelve, I think, and then we moved to New York City.”

Logan stares at him for a moment, thinking, then asks, “You aren’t related to the Sanders, by any chance, are you?”

Virgil’s not sure what either of them expected from that, but it’s certainly not the “Yes” that Patton gives them. Logan’s eyes go wide, and Virgil can’t see the expression he himself is making, but it’s probably pretty similar. It makes sense- the resemblance is certainly there- but the idea of Patton being descended from the infamous Sanders does not make sense at all.

Patton Patridge, born into a lineage of fae-fighters?

No. No way. Not possible.

 _Blood_ _calls_ _blood_ , he thinks vaguely, which is immediately followed by, _no_ , _that’s_ _stupid_. Virgil hears Logan begin to speak again, but he stares down at the needle clutched in his fingers, thinking over the words. _Patton is a Sanders. The Sanders family. The Sanders Besiders. Sanders son. Sanders ch-_

He flies off the counter, barely remembering to grab his hoodie on the way. “BebacksoonI’mgoingtorobyourex” he half-shouts as he flies out the door.

“...What?” he hears Patton say from inside. He’s already gone, thread and needle glaring behind him, still attached to his hoodie.

~|~

Declan Parsons finally gets home after being stuck in traffic for almost an hour. When he arrives, it is to a window that gapes ajar, five dollars on the table, and a note that simply reads, “Fuck you. -V”.

He considers calling the police before he realizes Virgil only took one of Logan’s old things, and that his corn snake has been fed. Also, now that he thinks about it, the five dollars might be a bribe.

He sighs, and resolves to get better locks on the windows.

~|~

The charm is dull grey, on a thick, iron chain. It’s a dense circle about an inch in diameter- almost a coin, really- with a small hole in the center for the chain. The edges are smooth, worn down by generations of fingers. When Virgil presents it to Patton, the needle still dangling from his sleeve, it catches the sunlight through the window. The gleam looks like the sun reflected off the duck pond all those years ago.

Logan gently punches Virgils  shoulder. “I _cannot_ believe you actually robbed Dee.”

“Is it really robbing if you leave money?”

“Yes!”

Maybe it’s just his friends, but putting it on feels like coming home.


	10. Better Not to Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Broken Crown by Mumford And Sons

When Patton falls asleep, he immediately sees Roman sitting in the front row, absentmindedly fiddling with a pair of scissors. “Hi!” He calls.

Roman whips around, a smile spreading over his face, before violently flinching back, hand over his eyes.

Right.

He scrunches up his face, eyes closed, and holds his scarf out to Patton. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back,” he says quietly as Patton ties it.

Patton bites his lip, looking around at the gutted theater. “I’m not abandoning you,” he promises him as he knots the makeshift blindfold.

Roman smiles at him. “Did you guys find out anything else?”

“...Not yet.”

His face falls.

“We found something that’ll let me go in the woods, but we haven’t used it yet. We just got it. I-“ Patton sighs. “We’re trying, I promise.”

Roman’s smile clicks back into place. “I know.” It’s chased by an expression of realization just a tad too fast to be true. “I found something while you were gone.”

“What?”

Roman points up at the stage, where there hangs a large backdrop. The image on it sends chills racing over Patton’s skin for reasons he can’t quite explain. It’s like when he found Roman: something about it has been warped just out of the plane of familiarity.

“It was just hanging up on its ropes when I found it- do you know what it is?”

“A throne?”

”Okay, so that’s a no.”

Patton breathes out through his nose, a pale imitation of laughter. “Sorry, it was just a _throne_ -away guess.”

Roman raises his head to look at him, mouth slightly open, and Patton does laugh this time. “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to get into the full s- _king_ of a joke like this.”

Roman groans, and Patton grins wider. “Like swing, do you get it?”

“No, no, I- I get it.” Patton can hear the smile in his voice. “That was awful. That was really awful, okay, I hope you’re proud.”

“Immensely!”

Roman snorts, a grin sparking across his face, and Patton smiles too, even though he can’t see it.

And then he’s back in bed, listening to the leaky tap drip softly into the sink a room over.

~|~

The theater goes silent, and Roman slams the open scissors into the soft, rotting wood of the armrest. There’s a crack as they enter, and then it’s quiet, quiet, suffocating silence in empty lungs.

~|~

“ _Run!” She screams to him, her coat flaring like the scaled ruff around the man’s (not a man, no man is that cold, that beautiful) head as she turns, and he does, leaving her in the clearing with the creature._

_He hears something hiss behind him, and he doesn’t look back, sprinting through trees that twist and groan in the wind. As he flees through the forest, he sees a root sprout from the loam, and he trips over it, into the brush, thorns cutting across his face as he falls. He tries to stand, tries to claw his way forward, tries to move, but somethings loops around his ankle and holds him back._

_He reaches for the ring about his wrist, but it’s not there, it’s not there, and he hears something move above him as he tries to free himself. Someone out of sight sighs at his struggles._

“ _No more, lordling,” they murmur, and the thorns prick into his skin like cat claws, creeping over him and blocking out the sunlight. He feels them slip silently through his hair, towards his eyes- he curls up in a ball to try to protect himself, but it just makes their job easier. He opens his mouth to shriek desperately for his sister, for anyone, but a delicate finger presses against his lips. “Quiet, now,” the voice hisses gently. “None of that.”_

_Far behind him, he hears something keen, an animal in its death throes as blood begins to trickle down his skin, and then there’s nothing but blinding pain._

_~|~_

Now, he stands in front of his bones. They’ve become bleached, alien things- but he’s not interested in them right now. A songbird is perched at his feet, peering upward through glassy eyes, it’s chest heaving. It’ll be fine as soon as he lets it go, but for now, he needs a chess piece to move across the board where he can’t.

He lifts his gaze from the bird, his bones, to the wooden throne sprouting from the ground. Rough quartz crystals are held in the uppermost parts of it, buds on a bizarre tree, and he directs the songbird to one of these. It flutters upward and begins tugging a smaller specimen out of its frame with its beak, dropping it through his outstretched hand when it’s free.

It pulls out seven crystals in all before the man, satisfied, releases it. It takes wing immediately, fleeing its captor, but it’s of no matter- he’s already turned his attention to a nest of chipmunks just a little distance away. He guides them through the forest, turns away predators, lets them march through the open to a nearby stream, where they drop the stones in one by one.

For a few moments, he watches them below the surface before he turns away.

~|~

When Patton sees Roman again, he’s on the edge of the stage, blindfold already tied. The scissors are nowhere to be seen as Roman gently swings his feet, face cold.

“Hello?”

”You lied to me.”

The air goes cold. Patton stops in the middle of the aisle as Roman hops off the stage. He moves slowly, tracing his fingers over the seats as he walks. Perhaps it’s to orient himself, but the effect is menacing: _Look what I can do!_

_Look at everything you didn’t tell me!_

Roman stops less than a foot away from Patton, face horribly calm. “So, do you want to know what I remembered while you were gone?”

_No._

”Yes,” Patton whispers.

Roman smiles crookedly, mournfully, a curtain pulled over his emotions. “I hurt Logan, didn’t I?”

”...yes, but-“

“I tried to hurt Virgil.”

“You didn’t-”

“Patton,” Roman murmurs, heartbeat quiet in the still air. “I know.”

It’s so quiet.

“What happened?” Patton asks, and he means everything that question could conjure. “Who took you? How did you remember? Why were you-“

“I need you to stop looking for me.”

“ _Why_?” Patton cries, and then Roman’s kissing him, and he tastes like dust, like silence and light, and Patton’s not sure why but he echoes it back, and when he opens his eyes again, he’s drowning in shining hazel-

Roman pulls back, eyes still open, uncovered, tears rolling down his cheeks and whispers, “Tell them I’m sorry.”

There’s a sound like snapping twigs, metal on metal, and Patton jolts out of sleep, two burning white eyes etched in his mind.

~|~

Patton vanishes, and Roman falls to his knees and screams loud enough for it to echo off of every rafter in this universe he’s trapped himself in.

It’s done.

They’re as safe as he can make them.

 _Rise, Prince,_ murmurs something in his memory, and he lets himself break.


	11. How I Long to Grow Old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford and Sons

When Patton calls and tells them both what happened, stuttering and skipping and stumbling over his words, Virgil goes radio silent for the better part of an hour. Logan doesn’t try to pull him back. He’s still reeling himself- it’s like those awful days when he and Virgil still had hope that Roman would just come stumbling out of the forest if they waited long enough, that this was all some kind of horrible nightmare...

But it’s not. He’s learned time and time again since then that there’s no room for hope in a purely logical mind. Maybe Patton can wake up from this, but that’s not a luxury for the rest of them.

He wishes, suddenly, that he hadn’t deleted that voicemail.

As Logan looks at the floor, not really seeing it at all, there’s a thump, and he flinches back from the bird that hits his window. It takes him a moment to react, so lost in his train of thought, but he rushes out through the back door to find the bird on the ground. It’s seemingly uninjured, but it’s still, and breathing hard. It’s a raven- not a bird common for this time or area. As he watches this foreign bird, trying to puzzle why it’s here, it picks itself up, winging towards the edge of his yard.

And as he follows its path, he sees the moment it begins circling around the man at the opening to the path, joining three others already making a black-feathered halo. The man beckons, face void of emotion, before stepping into the forest and disappearing.

There’s no room for hope in a purely logical mind, so the logic gives way, and Logan, against all better judgment, takes out his phone and lets it.

~|~

It’s been a very long time since Virgil has felt brave.

Roman was the brave one. Roman was the fearless one. Virgil was the survivor, and Roman was the one who lived, that’s how it was, that’s how it was always supposed to be.

Kissing someone as a distraction is such a Roman thing to do, and that’s what he hates. If that happened, that foolhardy, utterly Roman thing, then the rest happened, too. If that happened, then he truly didn’t want to come home, and he was content to leave his friends to suffer in his absence, god, what an ass-

Virgil hears himself laugh, even as his throat seizes up in the pain of a sob. Of course he would. Of course he would, their beautiful, fantastic Roman, of course he would.

Of course he would.

He tips his head back against his bedroom wall, and feels his eyes burn as he closes them. Of course he-

Outside, something barks. He ignores it, until it barks again, and then keeps barking, loud and incessant. He storms to his window and throws it open, expecting to shoo away some stray dog. He opens his mouth to shout it off before he takes in what’s standing in his backyard.

That is a goddamn wolf.

There is a goddamn wolf standing in his backyard and barking at his window, in goddamn New York, where wolves _don’t goddamn live-_

The wolf looks up at him, and, seemingly satisfied that it has his attention, turns and stalks to the entrance to the path. It stands in front of a man- a man Virgil’s fairly sure wasn’t there a few minutes ago- who puts a hand on its head as it sits down. He looks up at Virgil, still hanging out of the saltbox’s window, and beckons toward the path, before simply disappearing into the forest, the wolf trailing behind him.

Virgil’s phone buzzes, and he clambers back inside to take the call, closing the window behind him. “Hello?” He asks, voice still made weak by the lump in his throat. He coughs, and tries again. “Hello?”

Logan’s voice comes out of the speaker, oddly excited. “Virgil, thank god, something’s going on, there was someone on the path I’ve never seen before-”

“Did he have a wolf?”

“What?”

“He had a wolf just now, I saw him too.”

Logan’s silent for a moment. “Meet me on the path by the apple tree in half an hour. I’m getting Patton.”

“Do you think this has something to do with Roman?” Virgil asks before Logan can hang up.

“Yes.”

”I’ll be there.”

~|~

Patton’s cat is acting weird.

Maybe half an hour ago, it started clawing at the back door, and when Patton let it out, it just sat down in the middle of the yard, its tail twitching as it lay, otherwise, entirely still. When Patton had tried to approach it, it had hissed at him violently until he’d left it alone.

Honestly, it’s starting to worry him.

(He’ll take that over worrying about Roman, over remembering how he tasted like dust, how opening his eyes had hurt him, how he’s alone, now, and it’s dark and quiet and cold-)

He’s worried about the cat, and that’s all, he’s just worried about his cat not letting him get close and help. That’s it.

He sits on the back porch- probably not a good idea, all things considered- but he doesn’t really care at the moment. As he watches, his cat stands and begins walking towards the path. “Hey!” Patton calls after it! “No, no, no no no, don’t-” He stands and begins to chase after it, still trying to call it back. “No no no, please don’t, just stay in the yard, come on-”

The cat looks back at him and begins to run. Patton chases after it, aware of how ridiculous he must look, but it doesn’t matter- oh, god, it’s getting away-

The cat reaches the edge of the path, and stops just short of someone Patton’s fairly sure wasn’t there when it started to run. He looks young, maybe a little younger than Patton. There’s a moment of dissonance as Patton places his face, but the man doesn’t react in any discernible way. He just stands there, the cat- _Patton’s_ cat- twining around his legs.

“I know you,” Patton says quietly.

The man looks down at the cat as if he’s just now noticing its presence. It rubs its head against his legs one more times before trotting happily back across the yard to the back porch. “Your friends are looking for you, Partridge.” His voice is just how Patton remembers it, unchanged through time and memory. “You need to go to them. Now.”

“Who are you?” Patton asks, but he knows the answer, and he knows it’s impossible, too, because the man in front of him should he dead. That portrait was from the nineteenth century- and not even the late half of the nineteenth century, and he was just a little kid then. He shouldn’t be alive. There’s no way.

The man just steps to the side and points down the path. “They’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but someone’s playing with the signal again. You need to go, Partridge.”

Patton just stares at him, at this ghost, this impossible man. He means to ask how, or who, but what comes out is “Why are you helping us?”

The man looks him in the eye, smiling ruefully, and Patton sees eyes the same amber as his own. “My sister would never forgive me if I just left you on your own.” His smile fades, replaced by something old and sorrowful. “You need to destroy the throne. I did what I could- your prince will help from his side, but I can’t do any more. The three of you have to finish this yourselves, alright?”

Patton doesn’t know what to say. The man raises an arm and gestures to the path. “You need to go if you’re going to save him.”

So Patton gives him one last look and starts past him, down the path.


	12. It’s My Own Design, It’s My Own Remorse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears, covered by Lorde

The forest is quiet.

It’s been quiet for some time. It’s been quiet since the impossible man began to test the boundaries of his existence, to chip away at the chains keeping him captive, but the ones keeping him from falling into the abyss as well. It’s been quiet since the bitter, unthanked guardians discovered that they had lost what they cared for most in the instant they looked away.

But really, it’s been quiet since tonight, because this when it starts. It starts April eighth, amidst the glorious bloom of Spring. That’s not when he disappears, but it’s close enough, because this is the day he stumbles upon a cage and only sees a throne.

This isn’t when the trap is sprung, but it’s when it’s discovered. 

So, really, it’s close enough.

~|~

 Patton finds Virgil and Logan already coming his way.

“Did you-”

“Yeah, we saw him,” Virgil confirms grimly.

“You’re here.”

Patton turns to see the man again, at the very border of the forest. Now that he’s looking, not much is discernible about his features, but for his amber eyes. His clothing seems to flicker and shift through different time periods- he doesn’t remember it doing it that before. As he watches, his clothing changes to something Patton might remember from a U.S. history textbook, then to an outfit he might recall from a mall in New York, and then to a grinning, ethereal skeleton with bright, slit-pupiled eyes.

The man gestures with his head, seemingly oblivious. “There’s a throne in the forest. You need to destroy it to get your friend back.” Virgil steps forward, baring his teeth as he begins to speak, but the man continues. “I can bring you to it, but that’s all I can do. You’ll need to do the rest on your own.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Logan demands. The man looks at Patton- again, that bright-eyed specter.

Patton reaches down and snaps a stem of Queen Anne’s Lace from the ground. He carefully weaves it into the chain of his necklace, and watching the way the man’s eyes follow the charm, how something like regret ghosts over his face. “Because we don’t have a choice,” Patton answers, and he steps into the forest.

~|~

There’s something happening behind the curtain. Look carefully, and you’ll see the broken prince onstage, his knees up to his chest, and his arms wrapped around them. His eyes still burn, tears coursing down his cheeks. Perhaps it could be mistaken for sorrow, but there’s nothing so simple as sadness on his face.

There’s just weariness. Pain.

Behind that, nothing.

~|~

The man leads them through the forest. Logan watches the way he places his feet, the way he doesn’t leave tracks in the soft ground. “Are you human?” Logan asks before he can think better of it.

“No,” the man replies shortly. He hesitates, then continues. “I used to be, but that was a very long time ago.” His form flickers back to the skeleton, just for a moment, but long enough to drive the point home.

Neither of them speak again for the rest of the walk, which gives Logan time to realize how quiet the forest has become. He shivers, and then stops just shy of the man. The man has lead them into a nondescript part of the forest- not a clearing, just another tangle of trees. He wouldn’t have noticed the throne if he hadn’t been stopped. The throne itself is... Logan hears a pained squeak behind him, and he turns to see Patton gazing with horror at the twisted monstrosity in front of them. It looks like a tree had begun to grow out of the ground, but been twisted into this abomination before it could sprout leaves. It doesn’t look dead, though- he takes a step closer to look at the white buds sprouting from the woven branches forming the top of the tall headrest before realizing they’re raw crystals. Suspended from the top, seemingly in midair is a delicate crown made of leaves and lichen. Closer still, Logan can see spiderweb cables keeping it aloft.

“Is that-?” Virgil begins, eyes full of fear as he looks at the foot of the throne. Something chirps in the branches above them, and Logan hears the sound echo and expand in the silence- there are bones, oh, god, there are bleached-white bones jutting out of the dirt. He thinks they’re human.

“It’s not your friend,” the man murmurs. His form flickers again, and Logan sees the skeleton, and then, just on it’s heels, the man again, with thorns crawling over his skin and blood dripping down his body. The images disappear before they have time to settle.

Logan blinks.  _Not human anymore. “_ You-”

“The Prince is coming,” the man interrupts. “You need to work quickly. I’ll hold him off, but I won’t be able to keep it up long.” He glances at the base of the throne- the bones, the bones- and back up, flicker-fast and just as painful. “Good luck.”

He disappears. Far away, something shrieks, harsh and animalistic. Virgil pulls out one of his knuckledusters and holds it out to Patton, his face ashen. “You heard what he said.”

Logan raises his club.

~|~

It’s the same clearing where she told him to run, more than a century ago. Looking back at the throne, he didn’t get far at all. He’s sorry for letting her down. She didn’t deserve that. The creature she’d been fighting isn’t there anymore, but he sees what it created: the wooden soldier, in its wooden armor, its wooden mask. It unsheathes its sword, the silence interrupted when it sees him, and he forces himself to hold his ground. Focus. Focus. There’s a bobcat hiding in the trees. There’s a bear a quarter mile away. He just needs to distract it until his real weaponry can get here. “If you can hear me, I’m sorry,” he says.

He forces the nearby bobcat out, and it launches itself, spitting, at the Prince. Already, he can feel the forest trying to stop him from acting against it, but he has to hold up. He has to. He-

He grits his teeth, and keeps moving his pieces across the chessboard.

~|~

The theater is coming apart at the seams, and the prince takes the handle of his blade and prepares to fight one last time.

~|~

Scorch marks erupt where Virgil’s knuckledusters land against the wood, filling the air with smoke, but they’re too shallow. It’s not enough. “It’s not coming down!” He calls to Logan.

“Is there anything else we could do?” Logan calls back. Something screams again in the distance. There’s a dull thud. A wind rustles the branches above them.

Virgil shakes his head. “No, I- Fuck!” Part of the backboard has started to catch fire. As he watches, it spreads to the branches and their strange, crystalline fruits, burning away the wood and dropping the rocks to the ground.

“Should we set it on fire?”

“You get that that’s illegal, right? I shouldn’t need to tell you that that’s illegal!”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“Yes.”

Virgil whirls towards Patton. His eyes are unfocused behind his glasses as he looks around, tracing the path of something no one else can see. “Yes, I do- if it screws up, I’m sorry- I-”

In a single, whip-fast action, he takes off his charm and swings it against the throne.

~|~

Roman spins and plunges the scissors into the fabric of the screen, tearing a gash down the center of the image, cleaving it in two.

~|~

And it falls.

~|~

The Prince falls, the roses and thorns on his sword withering away, his armor crumbling and decaying. The bobcat flees as its captor disappears, tilting his head up towards the sun, because finally, it’s over, it’s over. The lords of the forest scream, a long, horrible sound that manifests as chattering birdsong, as falling trees, as the remnants of the throne burning down to ash and nothing.

Patton sees the man stream, almost fluid in his joy, through his vision, and then he sees him collide with a woman that looks like the missing link between this stranger and Patton’s own mother, and then he sees them vanish.

He blinks, and the both of them disappear, and it’s only him, his pendant still in his hand. It smells like smoke, and ash and quartz litter the ground. Virgil and Logan both stand several steps away, like the effect of the impact forced them back.

“Did it...?” Logan begins, and then Virgil’s flying past him, to the place they heard the screams. “Virgil, wait!” Virgil doesn’t slow down, doesn’t even seem to register the words, and so Logan follows him, only a few steps behind.

Patton hangs behind, clutching his pendant. “Thank you,” he whispers to the ghosts, and then he follows his friends.

He finds Virgil kneeling on the ground, shoulders shaking, Logan standing just behind him. Closer still, and he can see a red scarf- oh.

Roman lies prone on the ground, eyes closed. His scarf is in tatters, draped around his neck. There’s a long cut over his torso, and when Virgil pulls up his shirt to see the worst of it, he sees the sprawling burn mark from their first encounter with the Prince. “We need to get him out of here,” Logan murmurs.

Virgil carefully picks him up, bridal style. “We’re taking him to the hospital.” It’s atone that brooks no arguments about the questions the doctors will ask, about the need for secrecy. “Let’s go.”

It’s over, Patton thinks.

It’s over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's super not over, my dude.


	13. Who Could Love This Disaster?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Monsters by Mree

The hospital room is quiet, save for the soft, regular beeping of Roman’s heart monitor. Logan watches his face for anything, any change at all- it’s been several hours since the ambulance, the initial flurry of activity. His hand is calloused in Logan’s grip. Virgil presses a cup of coffee into Logan’s free hand. “It’s getting late,” Virgil tells him.

Logan sips his coffee. It tastes like ash in his mouth. “Is it?” It doesn’t matter. He’s waiting here until Roman wakes up, no matter how long. He’s not leaving again.

“I’m taking Patton home soon.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

Logan nods, already drifting away from the conversation. “Alright.”

“Hey.”

Logan looks up at him, and Virgil wraps his arms over his chest. “Don’t...” he begins, then sighs. Logan sees him struggle for words before carefully tugging off his sweatshirt and draping it over Logan’s shoulders. “Don’t burn yourself out,” Virgil tells him.

Logan nods, and pulls him down for a hug. “Thank you, Virgil,” he whispers.

Virgil leans his forehead against Logan’s. “Of course,” he whispers back. “Of course, Lo.”

~|~

_The sun is setting when Roman walks out the back door, red scarf tied around his neck, sword in hand. It’s not cold- it’s pretty warm, actually- but it doesn’t matter. Virgil made it for him as a birthday present, and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to wear it until it’s worn through._

_Logan stands waiting on the path. “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” Roman tells him. “You never called back.”_

_Logan shrugs. “Service’s been spotty all day. Maybe you just didn’t get it?”_

_It sounds about right, so Roman nods in sympathy. He bends down and plucks a piece of Queen Anne’s lace, tucking it behind his ear. This won’t take long. “Okay, so, I found something last night, and I need you to see it, because it’s either the coolest thing I’ve ever seen or the creepiest, and I need a second opinion.” He holds his arm out for Logan. “Shall we?’_

_Logan sighs, pushing up his glasses, and Roman brings down his arm. “You went out by yourself?”_

_“I brought you this time, didn’t I? And, look, I’m fine, Lo. See?” Roman holds up his arms for inspection. “I mean, I tripped on a root on the way out, but I’m totally okay, otherwise.”  
_

_Logan sighs again. “You’re going to get lost one of these days. You know that, right?_ _”_

_Roman smiles impishly. “Yeah, probably, but it’s gonna be a hell of a ride before I do.”_

_Logan smiles, too, after a moment, and tilts his head towards the forest. “Alright. So, what did you find?”_

_~|~_

Patton gets home late. He feels bad for leaving Roman, but there’s something he has to do.

He’s not really sure how to start. He knows there are probably better places to do this- one, in particular- but he’s not revisiting the remains of the throne anytime in the foreseeable future. Or in general. That particular site can finish rotting, as far as he’s concerned.

He goes up to the attic, and grabs the ribbon from the Eeyore plush for good measure. He arranges it in a little circle in front of the dusty window before taking off the iron charm and placing it in the middle. He turns away to get something else for his meager circle- this is stupid, right? This is stupid. It’s not going to work.

Someone clears their throat.

Patton whips around to see the man from the woods standing in front of the window, moonlight glowing eerily around and through him. He looks a little surprised to be standing here. “Hello,” he begins.

Patton looks at him. “Hello.”

The man looks down at the ribbon and the charm. “I didn’t think I’d be back so soon,” he says, almost nonchalantly. “Why did you call me over, Patton?”

Patton hesitates, then asks, “Does it end?”

“Does what end?”

“The forest, the- This! This! Does this end? Does it- does it ever  _stop_?”

 “Do you want it to?”

“I’m not asking for me!” Patton cries. “I- can he get out if he wants to? Does it  _end_?” He balls his hands up into fists at his sides. “It’s just- he’s fought so hard already, he shouldn’t have to do it all again if he wants to stop, right? That’s- that’s fair. That’s fair.” He knows he’s starting to breathe unevenly, and he doesn’t care.

The man stares at him, head tilted slightly to the side, before smiling. “Your friend can leave, if he wants. You don’t need to worry about that.” His smile fades. “However, Patton, I do think you should consider who takes his place if he doesn’t want to go back.”

“I’d do it,” Patton says, and there’s no instant of hesitation no tremor in his voice. “I would do it.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

Patton nods, breathes deep. “One more question.” The man blinks, and he forges on. “When you were alive... what was your name? Is it safe for you to tell me that?”

The man smiles, broadly, and Patton sees his eyes light up with pride. He thinks it’s pride. “My name was Thomas,” he says.

And then he’s gone. Patton doesn’t think he’s coming back.

~|~

_It’s only a ten minute walk to the throne, and Roman’s careful with his feet, careful in the way he guides Logan to it. He cuts away a branch with his blade and gestures to his discovery grandly. “Behold!”_

_Logan gapes, eyes wide behind his glasses. “When did you say you found this?” he breathes in awe._

_“Just last night. I didn’t sit in it or anything, don’t worry.”  
_

_Logan looks at it for another moment before running his fingers over the arm of the throne. Nothing happens. “It seems safe,” Logan tells him. “I- how old do you think it is?” He crouches and examines the roots. “I think it’s organic, it can’t be too old, or it would be thicker. What... Oh.” He leans back. “Oh.”_

_“What?”  
_

_Logan points, tipping back on his heels. “There are bones? Um, there are bones right here. I don’t... what do you think they’re from?”_

_He looks down at them. Yep. Those sure are bones. He feels vaguely ill. “Probably a deer or something,” Roman says. He can’t help the fear from creeping into his voice. The branches rustle overhead. “Okay, this is definitely in the creepy category. This thing_ defines _creepy.” He shivers, despite the warm air and the scarf. “We should... we should probably go.”_

_Logan nods and gets to his feet, being careful not to use the throne for support. “Yes.” He looks off into the forest, and Roman watches the way his hair sweeps back and forth in the wind. “There’s just...” Logan turns, pushes up his glasses. “Just one thing I need to do first.”_

_And then, so fast he doesn’t register it until it’s happened, Logan shoves Roman backwards, onto the throne._

_~|~_

Once upon a time, there was a boy who sparked fire in those he met, who lived and loved deeply, who ran his court of humanity with reckless, beautiful abandon. Once upon a time, there was a knight of iron and small-town concrete, who protected his kingdom with tooth and nail and laughter. Once upon a time, he fell in love with his life, and watched for the beauty in the old, decaying things, so that he could carry the idea of redemption in his heart and use it to keep him afloat.

He believed in redemption. That’s important. Remember that.

Because then, something irredeemable happened.

~|~

_The throne makes a horrible creaking noise as Roman falls into it, and there’s an awful, awful moment when he feels the wind pick up, feels the strand of Queen Anne’s lace fall from behind his ear, and he knows there’s nothing he can do anymore._

_He still tries to stand, but thorny vines covered in roses erupt from the armrests and force him to stay still. He can feel them prick through his sleeves, can feel more loops erupting around his ankles and his throat- oh, it hurts, it hurts. Not badly, not yet, but he knows the pain is coming._ _He tries to tilt his head to look up at Logan, but the thorns at his neck tear at his skin, and he feels blood begin to trickle out of the cuts. “Logan, what-”_

_Logan sighs, and kneels to look up at him. “Logan,” he whispers, and Roman sees his form twist into something bestial, something with a ruff of snow white feathers sprouting from it’s throat. “So his name is Logan.”_

_Roman tries to spit out a threat, but the vines creep upward, and he feels something soft and cloying sprout in his mouth. “Quiet,” the monster hisses. “Quiet, Prince.”_

_Roman feels himself choking on soft petals, and as long as he can, he forces his tear-stained gaze to stay locked on the monster’s eyes. He can’t do anything at all. There are thorns all down his shoulders, down his spine. He feels something lowered onto his head, something light and delicate, and feels it spread._

_He keeps his eyes open until they’re frozen in position by lichen and moss and wild magic._

_There’s a feeling like every thorn stabbing inwards at once._

_And then, nothing._

_~|~_

He wakes up slowly, in pieces at a time. There’s something soft under his fingers, under his head. It smells like antiseptics. He’s sore all over, and his chest-

Roman takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.

He sees the spotted ceiling tiles first, the fluorescent lights second, even though his eyes begin to blur as soon as he opens them. He can hear someone talking in the hallway, behind a closed door, in a hushed voice. He tries to move his head- oh, stiff, his neck is stiff, it hurts, and he squeaks out in pain before he can stop himself.

“Roman?”

No. No, no, no, it’s still here, he can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t-

“Roman, are you awake?”

He opens his eyes to see Logan’s storm blue irises inches away from him, still framed behind a layer of glass. There’s a moment in which he wants to scream, in which he almost does, but something else comes out instead.

“Get away from me.”

He can hear the rancor in his own voice, and he can practically pinpoint the moment it hits the thing hiding itself in Logan’s form. It recoils, from him, eyes wide. “Ro?” He shrinks away from it, as much as he can without being overwhelmed by the pain. “Ro, don’t, please stop, you’re going to hurt yourself- Roman, it’s me, it’s Logan, please just  _stop_ , I-” His voice is think with tears. Its? Oh, no, no, it’s- he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. He curls up in a little ball in the corner of his bed, or as much of one that he can get into with the tube in his arm.

There’s a tube in his arm. He stares at it for a moment, not quite comprehending what it means. He opens his mouth to speak again, but what comes out is a faint, cracked sob. “Are you real?” Roman hears himself say thinly.

There’s a sharp breath, and a warm touch on the back of his neck. “Yes,” Logan whispers as he eases himself onto the bed. “Yes, Roman, I’m real. It’s okay. It’s over, I’ve got you.”

There’s a low keening noise, and Roman can’t think over the feeling of contact enough to realize he’s making it. “Are you- Lo, I can’t-”

“I’m real,” Logan murmurs again. He loops his arms around Roman’s small, shaking form and Roman thinks he might be dissolving in the embrace. “It’s okay.”

He breathes in the scent of wildflowers, and then he just breathes.

~|~

Virgil gets a text at eleven o’clock that night. It’s a photo of Roman, lying on his side, eyes open. The left is hazel. The right is a dark, alien green, like leaves at the height of summer.

But they’re open, so Virgil tries to believe that that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now fanart for this chapter, made be the fantastic Altruistic-skittles of Tumblr!
> 
> http://altruistic-skittles.tumblr.com/post/182323379985/this-piece-is-inspired-by-stella-scriptor


	14. Let the Human In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from Human, by Of Monsters and Men.
> 
> And, y'all? Thank you.

People call Roman’s reappearance a lot of things in those first few days. The old woman at the store calls it a miracle, which Virgil disagrees with. No god that would strip away someones mind and flay it raw into a coat would ever care about undoing it. For a miracle to occur, those with power have to want it to happen.

The forest doesn’t care. The things living in it do not are about the human notion of miracles.

The man at the police station calls it a sign, which Virgil doesn’t agree too much with either. The battle is over, but the war has always been happening in the background. Nothing has changed.

The doctor at the hospital calls it three bruised ribs, several extensive second degree burns, and mildly infected full-body laceration wounds, which occupy areas including the mouth, the scalp, and the eyelids. He calls it an incredible amount of luck. He also calls it, closing the door behind the two of them, an unexplainable case of sudden heterochromia, and a severe obstruction to the airway.

“How severe?” Virgil asks him.

The doctor glances towards the door. “One of the EMTs pulled a rose out of his windpipe.” He slips something out of his pocket and presses it into Virgil’s hand. It’s withered, almost dead, but unmistakable. “It was blooming an hour ago,” the doctor tells him. “I thought it might be best if you kept it.”

Virgil takes the rose, and the moment he leaves the hospital, crushes it into dust in the night air. He watches the powdery scraps of the petals drift away on the wind, through the light on the streetlamps.

There will be no miracles tonight.

~|~

Roman is released after two weeks, against the doctors recommendations. His ribs are still bruised, but the scratches, as well as most of the burns, have healed. It still hurts to move, but it’s getting easier, and breathing no longer hurts. The nightmares are the worst: they’ve given him medicine to help him rest, and it helps, some, but his dreams still crack open over shadows and roses and blood.

He almost wants to forget again. It hurts so much.

Logan and Virgil sit in the front of the car, while Patton sits in the back with him. It’s warm in the car, but then, it’s warm everywhere. It’s still summer.

It’s only been four months, hasn’t it?

“Have they stopped playing Despacito on the radio?” Roman asks. “If they stopped playing Despacito, you might as well just drop me back into the forest, because there’s no point to being alive anymore.”

“This is so sad,” Patton whispers. Roman whips his head around so quickly he feels his spine pop. “Alexa, play Despacito.”

Roman hears Logan laugh in the shotgun. “No laughing in my damn car!” Virgil tells him, mock-angry. “I’ll leave you right here! You can hitchhike home, for all I care!”

Logan only laughs harder. “I missed you,” he says, looking at Roman in the rear view mirror.

Roman smiles, and ignores the taste of blood as his canines slip across his tongue.

~|~

It wrenches at Logan’s chest when he sees Roman drop his sword, cradling his hand where a burn mark rises through the skin. It tears at his heart every time he sees Roman flinch at his voice. It hurts when he sees him cover his eyes like just looking at the world causes him pain.

“It’ll get better,” Patton tells him. “Give him time.”

It absolutely destroys him when Roman tells him he doesn’t want to go back into the forest.

“I’m sorry,” Roman tells him, voice trembling ever so slightly. “Lo, I’m so sorry, but I just can’t. I don’t- I can’t live my life waiting to be hurt again. I can’t live like that, Lo, I just...” Logan sees him stare at the table, like a prisoner who knows he’s guilty, just waiting for the verdict to come through the judge’s mouth.

“It’s okay,” Logan tells him. “I understand, Roman. You don’t need to justify yourself to me. Do you want to keep living with us, or-”

“Yes,” Roman breathes. “ _Yes_ , I do, god, Lo, I- I’m so sorry-”

Logan shushes him and holds him close until he can breathe normally again. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Ro, it’s okay. Just breathe.”

Patton picks up Roman’s sword the next day, and Roman, brandishing a long branch, teaches him how to use it. The two of them laugh, and Logan thinks maybe the forest bristles at that. Good.

Let it see them be happy.

It’s alright if Logan takes the pain for a while. It’s alright if his heart feels like it will shatter his ribs. That’s alright. Things will get better. He just needs to wait.

It’s going to be okay.

~|~

Patton’s woken by someone climbing into his bed. He yawns, barely awake at all, reaching out for whoever’s lying next to him, only to feel them move closer. They’re warm, their arms cinching around him, pulling him close.

“Bad dreams?” Patton murmurs.

He feels Roman nod. “There were roses in my lungs,” he whispers. Patton can see him blink- his green eye reflects light in the darkness, and he can see that shine flicker in and out. “It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not.”

Roman doesn’t say anything for so long that Patton begins to hope against hope he’s gone back to sleep. “I’m sorry for kissing you,” he finally says.

“I’m sorry for lying to you,” Patton responds. He finds Roman’s hand under the sheets and laces their fingers together. “Roman, kiddo, are you still taking your meds?”

“Yeah, Virgil would lose it if I didn’t. Patton, you know I’m older than you, right?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“...Oh, damn it.”

Patton laughs, and he feels Roman laugh, too, squeezing his hand. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to try?”

“Yes,” Roman whispers.

Patton wriggles closer to him, and the two of them press together under the covers. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Roman tells him. And then: “Thank you.”

Patton doesn’t say anything, just listens to him breathe.

~|~

The sun will rise on Eston, and the sun will set over the forest. The stars will hang over the ones we love, promising glittering hope and fiery destruction, each at the same time. The moon will preside over a court of darkness and light, and we will live and wish and dream and end.

We will end, one day, but for tonight, we are safe. Close your eyes. You’ll wake up in the morning.

It’s going to be okay.

_End._


End file.
